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Voters in California approved a bond measure that will allot $930 million to the "construction, expansion and remodeling" of children's hospitals, reports Modern Healthcare. Known as Proposition 3, 80 percent of the total amount will go toward eight regional, non-profit hospitals; the rest of the funds will go toward five University of California children's hospitals. The measure will be paid off at a rate of $64 million per year for 30 years.

In 2004, California citizens voted for a similar measure, authorizing the sale of $750 million in general obligation bonds. While $400,000 has been allocated to eligible hospitals so far, some hospitals have requested more funding in order "to meet state seismic-safety requirements and adequately care for chronically and seriously ill children."

For more:
- read the Modern Healthcare article (reg. req.)

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After posting a net income of $202 million for the first nine months of this year, Kaiser Permanente has seemingly gone belly-up. For its investment portfolio in the third quarter alone, Kaiser Permanent lost $399 million, compared with a net income of $654 million at the same time last year. The Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and subsidiaries, lost $706 million on investments in Q3; last year at this time, they had gained $205 million.

George Halverson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser, thinks that despite the downturn, things remain positive for his company. "Though the unprecedented events unfolding in our economy and financial markets are posing challenges to our organization, our basic business and our integrated-care delivery model remain strong," he said in a statement.

Still, membership is down about 1 percent from a year before (from 8.7 million to 8.6 million members), a number Kaiser chalks up to a decline in employment. Total operating revenue for Kaiser is also up $800 million--from $9.4 billion to $10.2 billion--and capital spending at the company is up 6.4 percent from this time a year ago.

For more:
- here's the Modern Healthcare article (reg. req.)

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In a study of women who took vitamins B-6, B-9 and B-12 daily for slightly more than seven years, researchers found that the vitamins had neither a positive nor a negative affect on their subjects in regards to cancer when compared with a similar group who took placebos, according to an article on Boston.com. The study is a contrast to previous research that suggested that a lower risk of cancer was associated with taking those vitamins.

Some 5,442 female healthcare professionals with an average age of 63 participated in the study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Of those women, 187 women from the vitamin group developed cancer, while 192 from the placebo group developed cancer.

"This study shows that supplementation with the combined B vitamins provided no beneficial effect and no harmful effect," said the study's leader, Dr. Shumin Zhang of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical school. "So in terms of cancer risk, this may not be an effective approach."

Women 65 and older who received daily B vitamins were found to be 25 percent less likely to develop any kind of cancer, and 38 percent less likely to develop breast cancer.

For more information on the study:
- here's the article from Boston.com

A new study shows that women who suffer from migraines have a much smaller chance of developing breast cancer. As reported by Reuters, Dr. Christopher Li of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle believes that the correlation may have something to do with hormones. While, according to Li, women who have high levels of estrogen in their blood are more likely to develop breast cancer, women who have migraines tend to have "lower baseline estrogen."

"We found that, overall, women who had a history of migraines had a 30 percent lower risk of breast cancer compared to women who did not have a history of such headaches," Li said.

The study looked at two separate prior studies of 3,412 post-menopausal women in the Seattle area. Of that total, 1,938 were diagnosed with breast cancer, while 1,474 had no history of breast cancer.

Li added, "While these results need to be interpreted with caution, they point to a possible new factor that may be related to breast-cancer risk." This study's results appeared in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.

For more:
- read this article in the Washington Post

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Tenet Healthcare has reported a slight improvement in revenue of up to $2.2 billion for Q3 compared to $2.1 billion for the same period last year, falling short of analysts forecasts. The hospital owner is struggling to reach profitability, in part because of increases in bad debt and patients' inability to pay their bills, the company reports. Bad debt rose for the quarter to 5.8 percent to $163 million, up from $142 million last year.

The Texas-based company says that it expects to break even with earnings of $75 million for 2008; EBITDA is now forecast between $700 million and $750 million, down from previous estimates of between $750 million and $825 million.

In spite of some modest increases in revenue, Tenet will continue to struggle, analysts say. In a research note, Goldman Sachs warns that, "Tenet's markets have the highest absolute unemployment level of any of the public hospital companies (7.3 percent in key markets as of August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) and higher foreclosures than average, which may explain Tenet's worsening outlook compared to peers."

To learn more about Tenant's Q3 earnings:
- read this Los Angeles Business Journal story
- check out this AP story

Whether reverting to nature trails, gardens, therapy dogs, reiki, acupuncture, massages or half a dozen other modalities, Nick Jacobs of Hospital Impact believes that there's definitely something to using more integrative medicine. Hospital Impact

> Short term at least, the outlook in the markets for orthopedics services and devices appears bright, according to Raj Denhoy, director of equity research at Thomas Weisel Partners. FierceHealthFinance

> Rehab services provider HealthSouth Corp,. has reported a dramatic drop in net income of $6.6 million, or less than a penny a share for Q3 compared to $267.6 million, or $3.13 a share, for the same period last year. FierceHealthFinance

> Sweden's AnaMar Medical has raised SEK 75 million ($9.6 million) to fund a phase I study of AM240 MCR for rheumatoid arthritis. The funds are provided through a rights issue guaranteed by AnaMar's principal owner Koncentra Holding. FiercePharma

> Just hours after Sanofi-Aventis pulled the plug on its clinical trials for the diet drug Acomplia, Pfizer followed suit and called a halt on its development of an experimental weight loss drug belonging to the same class of drugs. FierceBiotech

And Finally... Obama sure knows how to party! Article